Fragments
by projectoverlord
Summary: The people he affected most visit him, and they talk to him. Movie Spoilers. Drabbles. Awfulness and angst. Clint/Coulson, hints of Bruce/Tony.


_Coworker_

Fury comes to him first. Stands over the headstone and just _looks_. Cold stone presses to his palm. At long last, he says, "You were right. This was never going to work without a push."

He sits down, talks about the cases they're working. Nobody is around, so he can talk about whatever he damn well likes. And he does. Phil gets to hear about everything, even the stuff classified _beyond _classified. Once, before all of this - before Loki, before the Avengers - the two of them would get coffee and just talk. They'd been coworkers, maybe not even friends. But the thing about SHIELD, about working for SHIELD, is that it's lonely. Agents come and go, they die and the others move on without them. And the survivors can't tell a soul. They can't tell their outside friends - if they have any - and so they flock together. They have coffee and they get it off their chest. It's hard to see what they see and not talk about it.

"It was necessary to push them," Fury says, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I just wish we had another way to do it."

_Friend_

Sure, they bicker. They make fun of each other. Okay, so it's mostly Tony making fun of Coulson. But the Agent gives as well as he gets, and they're never bitter. They never really _fight._

So Tony never counted him as anything but a friend.

Bruce hangs away from the grave, waiting in silence for Stark to finish. Tony glances at him, and then sighs. He's not _good at this_. Friend or not, he's not one for goodbyes.

"Sorry about the cellist," he jokes, but it's half-hearted. Shaking his head, he amends, "I don't do this, y'know. But...we miss you. We all do. So...well, you know..."

He trails off, and Bruce rests a hand on his shoulder. They turn and start to walk away, but Tony turns back at the last minute and shakes his head, "Thanks."

_Mentor_

Maria comes in the middle of the night, freezing right to the tips of her toes. She sits on the damp grass and puts a bouquet of daisies against the headstone. He liked daisies, she'd learned once. There would always be a fresh bouquet in his office, in a little purple vase. Once he'd told her about his niece, Amy, and the day she'd given him the handmade purple vase.

The vase is smashed now, in pieces in the trash from when the helicarrier was falling from the skies. But she saved a piece, and put it in the dirt on top of the coffin.

Phil Coulson had been her mentor, a long time ago. When she'd been a new agent for SHIELD with no idea about what she was getting herself into and even less idea how to get out. He'd helped her through the days she couldn't handle. Taught her the tricks of the trade that only someone versed in their job could know.

"Amy came to the funeral," she murmurs, plucking a shriveled flower from the bouquet and toying with it. "And your sister too. She looked sad. So...I don't know, maybe you were wrong. You said she didn't care about you, Phil, but she did. She does. And...I wish you'd known it."

She tells him more, about the wake at his sister's house. And about the _real _wake - the one at Stark Tower - where they could properly remember the SHIELD agent and everything he had done for them.

One last thing sits in Maria's palm. She turns it over it her hand, and then places it at the base of the headstone. Captain America's face smiles back at her. "I know you'd be horrified. Mint condition and now look at it. Covered in blood and left out here for the weather to claim it. But...nobody loved these things like you did. This is where it belongs."

Tears stain her face as she looks at the scrawled signature across the face of the card, and she struggles out, "Steve finally signed it for you."

_Idol_

Cap doesn't quite know what to say. He arrives there the morning after Maria's been, and her footsteps are still set into the dirt. His trading card is still there, undamaged and signed in his best, neatest signature.

Leaning down, he puts a drawing next to the daisies. It's just a sketch, rough and unfinished, of the team at Stark Tower the night of his wake. But it's their team, their family, and even if he's not in the sketch he's in the team.

Captain America melts away a little. Steve Rogers stands in front of the headstone, and he talks. Tells stories about the days of Hydra. The fights. About Erskine and Peggy, about Phillips and Bucky. Because he was going to tell Phil once everything was said and done with Loki. He was going to reminisce with him over drinks, because Coulson was a good man and he deserved an opportunity to hear the tale of Captain America from the Cap himself.

"Rest well, soldier," he says when the stories all run out. Lifting a hand to his forehead, he salutes. "Thankyou for believing in heroes."

_Lover_

Clint Barton is the last. Even then, even months after Cap's visit, he comes only when Natasha threatens bodily harm and drags him there. She knows, even if he doesn't, that this is what he needs. What both of them need.

She stands away, gives him space. And he stands awkwardly over the headstone and refuses to look at the words engraved on it. The daisies are dead, and the trading card is soaking wet. The drawing has blown away.

He waits until Tasha's out of earshot, and then everything just comes falling out. His knees hit the softened earth and though he doesn't cry, his heart aches. "This is my fault."

And Phil's not there to argue. To tell him he's wrong, that this is Loki's fault. So Clint goes on believing that this is how it is. That if it weren't for him, Phil Coulson would be alive.

"You were the best of us. The bravest," Natasha says, because she knows Clint can't manage it. "You believed we were heroes even if we weren't acting like them. We owe you everything. The world owes you everything. Without you, it might've all fallen down around us."

Clint hangs over the ground, broken. All the air stolen from his lungs, forced from his body. Part of him is tearing at his insides, desperate to crawl six feet under and go cold as he presses against Phil and lets everything else fall away.

But the other part is standing, and it's being strong, because that's what Phil would've expected. He reaches into his pocket, Tasha forgotten, and pulls out a plain gold ring. Tasha had been the one to swipe Phil's ring - she was the only one who knew - and Clint had been the one to slip it onto Phil's finger just before the coffin closed. It was a ring, meant for a finger and yet it had not been worn on one since it was first gifted. Just once, before it was never seen again, Clint had finally seen it. The perfect fit, encircling the ring finger of Phil's left hand.

He rolls his own ring over in his palm and shakes his head. It fits perfectly, just like Phil's had, and looks just so _right._

"We shoulda changed the vows," he drawled, low and sad and just so _broken. _"You shoulda waited. Damnit, Phil. You should've waited."

_Thank you_, he thinks, _and not just for giving us the push. Thank you for everything._

* * *

_A/N : Because, y'know, Phil Coulson is a hero. And it would be a shame not to offer him a fitting tribute. So here's to Phil. He deserves to be remembered. I'm posting this before I have a chance to wuss out, so there are probably mistakes. But if I don't do it now, I never will._

_I don't own Avengers._


End file.
